Protecting the Bloodvein River

The Pimachiowin Aki project aims to designate Manitoba’s Bloodvein River and surrounding forests a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Bald eagles soar over Manitoba’s Bloodvein River and a forest of lichen-draped Jack pines and mattress-thick moss. Piloted by grinning
guides who shout at one another in Ojibwa, our boats splash through a series of churning rapids en route to an ancient rock painting on a granite cliff.

This river and the forest surrounding it are at the core of a campaign to create a UNESCO World Heritage Site on approximately 4.3 million hectares of boreal
forest straddling the Manitoba-Ontario border, about one-third of the way up the eastern side of Lake Winnipeg. The goals
of the Pimachiowin Aki preservation project are clear: protect a largely intact swath of trees and lakes and rivers, and
the cultural traditions that live on here, from encroaching development. What’s less clear from the river, however, are
the politics behind the proposed site — chiefly, the battle over the location of a major hydroelectric transmission line,
as well as competing visions of economic development among First Nations.

Advertisement

“We have a lot to share with you and to teach you,” says Sophia Rabliauskas, the project’s soft-spoken community
coordinator, during a spring tour of the area organized for journalists, environmentalists, scientists and politicians,
including Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger. “Hopefully, people will get a chance to see that.”

Nearly a decade ago ago, four local First Nations began developing a plan to apply to UNESCO for World Heritage
Site status (a fifth First Nation joined the group later). The land in question is home to about 7,200 members of
the Bloodvein, Little Grand Rapids, Pauingassi, Pikangikum and Poplar River first nations, as well as a pair of provincial
parks (Atikaki and Woodland Caribou) in Manitoba and Ontario, whose governments have been part of the pitch
from the start.

Pimachiowin Aki (pim-MATCH-chowin ahh-KEY) means “the land that gives life” in Ojibwa, and the UNESCO application
is rooted in both the natural and the cultural value of the region. Becoming a World Heritage Site would not only
preserve habitat for threatened species, including woodland caribou and lake
sturgeon, but also showcase traditional ways of relating to the land, such as harvesting wild rice and hunting moose.

“The original idea was just protection of traditional territory,” says William Young, owner of the Bloodvein River
Lodge, the base for our river excursion. “Now we want to manage the area within our traditional territory. I think becoming
a UNESCO site would give it more exposure both internationally and in urban Canada, especially Winnipeg.”

A UNESCO designation as a world-class landscape tends to draw tourists, which could be a boon to a place already popular
with Americans and Europeans, who come to fish for pickerel and pike and to experience First Nations culture.

Until now, the culture of these communities has been protected by their isolation. To travel south, residents usually
cross Lake Winnipeg to reach Highway 8, a two-hour trip by boat or, in winter, by truck when the ice is solid. There’s also an
old winter logging road east of the lake that heads south. To fly, it costs $250 for a one-way ticket out of Bloodvein.

That will change, however, with the construction of a four-season highway along the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg
that will extend about 150 kilometres north of Bloodvein to Berens River. The new road is scheduled for completion
in 2014 or 2015 and would connect to southern highways and provide easier access to health care and fresh food for
residents of remote communities. But there are fears it could also bring alcohol, drugs and gangs to northern reserves.
Moreover, the road could potentially open up the area to mining and forestry companies, although getting a UNESCO
designation would significantly limit the extent of industrial development.

The most pressing industrial issue is the new hydroelectric transmission line, Bipole III, that Manitoba Hydro plans
to build from the north of the province to Winnipeg. Politicians are arguing over
the location of the line — indeed, it has
become one of the main issues in early
October’s provincial election — and over
whether its route will affect the proposed
UNESCO site.

Manitoba’s current NDP government
wants the power line to be built west of
Lake Winnipeg, claiming that selling
electricity to the United States hinges
on the power being produced and transmitted
in an environmentally friendly
manner. “As you know, Alberta has a
reputation with the oil sands,” says
Premier Selinger. “We don’t want to
be put into that basket.”

The Progressive Conservatives — a
close second in early polls — are in
favour of a shorter and cheaper route
down the east side of the lake, through
Pimachiowin Aki. That wouldn’t prevent
the area from becoming a UNESCO site,
says Hugh McFadyen, Leader of the
Official Opposition, who points out that
construction jobs and profit-sharing by
Manitoba Hydro would help northern
First Nations. “What they shared with us
is the devastating poverty in those communities,”
he says, “and the hope to find
some ongoing economic development.”

George Kemp, chief of Berens River
First Nation, supports the east-side route
and his community has not signed on to
the UNESCO bid. “This is another attempt
to lock up the east side by environmentalists
from outside our communities,”
he says. “There is a false promise that
ecotourism is the answer for economic
development.”

After years of meetings and boxes
of studies, a decision is expected from
UNESCO by late 2013 or 2014. Roughly
half of all nominations are accepted,
and Canada already has 15 UNESCO
sites, including SGang Gwaay on
Haida Gwaii, B.C., and Wood Buffalo
National Park on the Alberta–
Northwest Territories border.

Back at the Bloodvein River Lodge,
two women fry pickerel and stir a pot
of moose stew. Martina Young, a greyhaired
elder wearing a T-shirt that spells
out R-E-S-P-E-C-T, talks about the
potential economic benefits of the road
but also her uncertainty, even fear, of the
unknown. Change is coming, regardless
of UNESCO’s verdict, and people in
Bloodvein are both worried and hopeful
about the future.